Early detection and treatment of breast cancer and other kinds of cancer typically result in a higher survival rate. Despite a widely accepted standard of mammography screenings for breast cancer detection, there are many reasons that cancer is often not detected early. One reason is low participation in breast screening, as a result of limited access to equipment and fear of radiation and discomfort. Another reason is limited performance of mammography, particularly among women with dense breast tissue, who are at the highest risk for developing breast cancer. As a result, many cancers are missed at their earliest stages when they are the most treatable. Furthermore, mammography results in a high rate of “false alarms”, leading to unnecessary biopsies that are collectively expensive and result in emotional duress in patients.
Other imaging technologies in development are unlikely to create a paradigm shift toward early detection of cancer. For example, magnetic resonance (MR) imaging can improve on some of these limitations by virtue of its volumetric, radiation-free imaging capability, but requires long exam times and use of contrast agents. Furthermore, MR has long been prohibitively expensive for routine use. Conventional sonography is not a practical alternative because of its operator dependence and the long time needed to scan the whole breast. In other words, lack of a low-cost, efficient, radiation-free, and accessible tissue imaging alternative to mammography is a barrier to dramatically impacting mortality and morbidity through improved screening.
Thus, there is a need in the medical imaging field to create a new and useful method and system for imaging a volume of tissue that addresses the need to combine the low-cost advantage of mammography with superior imaging performance. This invention provides such a useful method and system.